An INCA event in Manchester

“Today INCA launches a Special Interest Group for ‘Ultra-Connected Smart Cities’ – those cities in the UK working to improve their digital infrastructure. The launch event at Manchester Town Hall has attracted a large audience wanting to find out what cities like Manchester, Bristol and Derby are planning. They also have an opportunity to hear about major private sector initiatives, including City Fibre Holdings plans for commercially-funded urban fibre to the home (FTTH) networks, and new wireless broadband initiatives.

The Special Interest Group brings together public, private and community organisations in a dialogue about how our cities can get the best digital infrastructure for future prosperity and economic growth.”

Shaping the Connected Digital Economy Catapult

A focus on SMEs

Storified by Brian_Condon · Thu, May 10 2012 12:06:24

Here’s the briefing material for the day:

“The workshop will start with a presentation on the vision, scope and process for the establishment of the Catapult and will be a chance for participants to understand and debate the range of ways companies will be able to work with the catapult, including strategic partnerships, delivery partnerships, and participation in projects and use of resources and facilities.

The main part of the workshop will delve into and debate the type of resources and facilities that the centre could provide that would benefit SMEs once the centre is established; note that this will not be about specific technology areas or projects, but about the nature of the gap that SMEs face and where practical support from the Catapult would make a big difference.

The information captured from the debate will be used as part of the ongoing development phase of the CDE Catapult and will form valuable input into the initial business plan for the centre.”

Reminder from @JeremyS1 #cdecatapult must reflect flexibility of digital industry it serves. Best achieved through dialogue with SMEs IMHO

Delighted UX is topping list of #cdecatapult proposals for year one capabilities. Hope multi-disciplinary projects will also get attention

@mcseain @nick_appleyard hopefully #cdecatapult capabilities can help facilitate some of that UX skill to make it easier for SMEs

Moving into questions now and the question of location for the CDE Catapult emerge. Needs to be maximum accessibility for the maximum number of people says Nick Appleyard. Jemy Silver argues that some things can be done virtually – not all the people at this meeting are in the room many of them are looking remotely. A questioner says that “Shoreditch and Manchester” are impossible to get to!

How does a 1-location centre help SMEs nationally? Very good question – virtual integration coupled to a physical location. #CDECatapult

Answer: one centre accessibility to everyone rather than be dispersed. Creating a singularity? #cdecatapult

In Bristol and Bath SP; questioner says "Manchester and Shoreditch are impossible to get to…" I came here from Kent! Ha! #cdecatapult

Key challenges emerging: location, collaboration, resource, funding/bidding, and speed! It must be quick in this environment #cdecatapult

Lots of brainstorming and chat on the Twitter ‘backchannel’ – some of which I could only capture by tracking n=both ends of the conversation – difficult to follow without using the hashtag!

ORegan wondering what the stone is in the catapult? It is David and Goliath! #cdecatapult

Think #CDECatapult needs to be more than another incubator – lots of these already existing.

SMEs are the engine of innovation. SME asks if the #cdecatapult will offer real co-location office space and what support is up for grabs?

@ireneclng gov’t likes defining how parties have specific skills. Was at EU event where only uni’s spoke cos they had ‘ideas’ unlike SMEs.

@Acuity_Design if any group has the license to do things differently #cdecatapult shd have. Do we still remember how?

@Acuity_Design perhaps the counterbalance of large org power is the SME spring? #cdecatapult

@ireneclng metaphorical models of pivots, levers, etc may not help describe a political/financial creation #cdecatapult

Q. How do we make #CDECatapult profitable for microSMEs? Can commercial relationships help? [within EU-law]

Consensus growing that SME delegates’ disruptive potential inversely proportionate to their politesse to the hosts #cdecatapult

@creativeKTN Disruption as oligarchy meets artisans #cdecatapult

Now we are moving into workshop groups – will continue to add content to this Storify if possible.

#cdecatapult Groups asking what the Centre should provide. Be bold in vision and don’t just do what’s happening already. Make it special

My group discussing how #cdecatapult can work. 6 in the group – 4 from Universities.. Speculating about what SMEs might need 🙂

Lots of talk on how to make #CDECatapult worthwhile for SMEs – need to understand problems faced by SMEs – difficult for public bodies.

Creative thinking on #cdecatapult struggling with the need to fill in a form….

Workshop 2: why and how would a fictional SME get involved? (Designs for #CDECatapult on a postcard.)

Success for #cdecatapult will be in *how* it behaves rather than *what* it does

#cdecatapult cannot deliver incubation space or business support – but might be part of a local ecology where this is available in spades

Does #cdecatapult need operational (JV?) model combining very specific capabilities with a broader range of business incubation services?

During the feedback session for Workshop 2 we heard 2 minute feedback presentations from each of the working groups – indicating the wide-ranging ideas for scenarios for CDEC operation. A common theme of brokering relationships, building consortia, helping to take risk and coordination emerged.

Good discussion on a hypothetical SME. One thing is clear, SPEED is crucial. #cdecatapult

Tweets about #cdecatapult have reached 11,556 people http://t.co/LtBCzsPR via @tweetreachapp

#CDECatapult as broker – working on multiple geographic levels in UK; providing access to advisors. #brainstorming

Company has big idea – don’t have resources for design/manufacture/testing. Need project management by #CDECatapult. #brainstorming

Sarah says that the project was much bigger than the video shown today. “It really punched above its weight”. The making of digital objects was an important act of the project – reflecting back progress.

Choreographic Objects: traces and artifacts of physical intelligence Principle and Co-Investigators: James Leach (Principle Investigator and Award Holder)Department of Anthropology, School of Social Science, University of Aberdeen Sarah Whatley (Co-Investigator)ceMAP, Coventry University Scott deLahunta (Research Fellow)ARTI, Amasterdam School for the Arts, NL Project Partners: Art Research, Theory and Innovation group, Amsterdam School for the Arts, NLWayne McGregor | Random DanceIntel, People and Practices Research Choreographic objects: traces and artefacts of physical intelligence is the title and focus of a series of three workshops centring on the output of four research teams working in collaboration with the choreographers William Forsythe, Siobhan Davies, Wayne McGregor and Emio Greco PC.

Paul talked about ephemera and digital objects such as the BBC indents (the hippos) and their relationship with RedBee media. He was very insightful on the dynamics of ephemeral content and the persistence in people’s minds not designed by its creators.

Clare Reddington says that the Digital Economy is a lot about enabling people to reconnect with the physical world with the help of digital technology. It’s about the layering and richness of experience. “We have to do better than Minority Report”. It’s about experiences. And the way digital changes the way we live. There is a speed function (cites Agile). Temporality and the creative economy.

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Good point well made by @clarered at #beyond text that digital economies are multiple economies. Not singular. #beyondtext

Sarah says we want more than the value of models and templates. We are seeing a proliferation. It’s also about engagement and values -both material and ethical. The future has to be about re-use of material. And new creation from combining these objects.

Paul Grainge says that he does not have a problem with the word content and there is ‘blurrring’ between disciplines.

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So @billt – is prepared to use the term “Digital Society” but not “Digital Economy” who knew? #beyondtext

Sarah says we are seeding the emergence of short-lived digital objects that don’t persist like photos or written documents.

Big discussions going on about archiving across different disciplines. And changes in the way archives are and can be used (such as pictures of children). And how about reputational issues of researchers ‘private’ notebooks.

Bill points out that the BBC has great difficulties in looking at the digitisation of archives and a ‘duty of care’ to the participants. The issue of online identity and provenance. How do you verify who can see it?

Andrew Burn – says that clearance has been an import aspect of his work especially about images of children. He agrees it needs to be handled carefully.

Until they got over the fear of the amateur, the funders found difficult to make progress

Rebekka says it’s interesting that there is a ‘where’ in e title of this session. Was what we did really radical – at music festivals; would it have been more radical at a shopping centre or in a University.

Rebekka says this is the first time she’s seen the video – it was e-mailed to her this morning.

Dani Salvadori says she sees convergence in the ‘college’ job at Central St Martins; whereas in her university job at University of the Arts she sees divergence. Companies and students coming together – not a hard sell on either side. On university side sees divergence – means dealing with Science and Technology – this is largely a b2b role.

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The most depressing meeting I’ve been to recently was the #cdec meeting says Dani Salvadore of CSM at #beyondtext

She says that there is too much operational thinking and British businesses risk being left behind. It’s not just business – it’s also in science, technology and engineering education – too narrow.

Jeremy Silver says I have two jobs too: advising the TSB on Creative Industries and trying to help get the money spent wisely. And the rest of the time he works with small companies helping them to do ‘real stuff’. And he says that we haven’t updated our definitions of the Creative Industries. And these don’t help – especially when the redefinitions of terms seem to reduce the size of the industry.

The main problem facing the industry is what Jeremy describes as the incumbents’ dilemma and their difficultly in working out how to change. Legislative change – says the Digital Economy Act drove people further apart.

We have an inexorable drive to be businesslike – but we don’t all have to be businesses – not everything can become a business. Let’s not force everything into becoming a business.

Sally Taylor says that she works between Universities and culture. The list of 13 captive industries has lasted since 1997 – and is probably in need of getting rid of. There is huge demand she says and more creative people working outside the creative industries than in. Need to talk about creative people. It’s a difficult game she says. But “it’s yours”.

TCCE had a conference on Creativity in Business recently. There are positive and negative aspects to creativity in business. Some of the positives are the world’s most iconic buildings.

The problems to deal with are about people; and academics have a role to play.

Where next for the creative industries? How about de-industrialisation. Let’s abolish or radically reduce copyright terms – make things move faster. Less agonistic and maybe more effective.

Jeremy thinks that reducing the term to 12 years would be interesting but the incumbents won’t go for it – implausible.

Rebekka questions the idea of deindustrialisation – and what it really means. Dani says it’s really happening and creation on the Internet is evidence of that. This country is “half deindustrialised” anyway.

Danger of programming in schools is that it will be pushed into ICT education and they will not realise that to make good computer games you needed to bring together music, narrative, writing etc.

Evelyn Wilson says we over fetishise the creative industries – the notion of boosterism cite by Kate Oakley. But what about what next for creativity?

Rebekka says there is no shared view of what ‘creativity’ means – don’t want a definition but the recognition that we are all on different pages.

Ghislaine Boddington says that internationally we have a good reputation and a very high level of quality for digital artists – it’s leading work worldwide. She mentions Creative Europe and the term Culture and Creative Sector – and says doesn’t mention “industry”.

One contributor says that we shouldn’t underestimate the impact of the English language. Dani says she doesn’t agree – most of the work is of a visual nature – language is not important.

We need the new stuff to come from creative work and be driven by that not led by industrial need.

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Sounds like the #beyondtext event was interesting lookin at tweets by @brian_condon @JeremyS1 @clarered

The speed of change during the programme has been amazing says Evelyn Welch – yet it is also surprising that the questions have remained constant, indeed have gained relevance as the programme has continued.

Larger questions of learning
Elena Isayev -serendipity is important and beyond text has enabled the space to allow serendipity to emerge. We also learnt how to get complex ideas across to people; including children and providing tools for them to think about things in a different way.

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Elena Isayev – “We got the kids to write in Etruscan, and because we didn’t tell them it was about literacy – they did!” #beyondtext

Graeme Milne saya that testimony from local people was of a different kind from that usually found by museums – it seemed to be more descriptive and about mobility and movement – needed to rethink how we saw these aspects. The was a real sense of Liverpool’s history and maybe they a thinking bait more comfortably about it’s past.

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Seems to me it’s the non-linearity of shared memory which is helping us ‘remember the future’ at #beyondtext

Elena says she is in conversations with other groups around the world. And also talking to the gallery about making apps and involving local school child’s. There’s also a social justice angle.

Sandy Heslop – publication and wider work on basketry – new perspectives and working with the existing group of collaborators.

Graeme Milne – looking at less formal oral history, less structure and you get people you would never encounter – but it raises clearance and copyright issues. How do we make the content persist and how long do people’s perceptions continue to affect the newer generations. Definition and identity of place.

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Really interesting discussion of an identity of a city that almost everyone buys into .- and suddenly somebody doesn’t #beyondtext

Discussion of place after Rebekka’s question – and how they avoided being sucked into the ‘pop music and football’ aspects of Liverpool.

Question on “Impact” and the ref. Elena says her project is an impact case study – though they started it before the REF changes it has become more visible. Graeme says their project will not be an impact case study though those things were built in from the start by e museum partner.

Growing into Music: a multicultural study of musical enculturation in oral traditions Dr Lucy Durán Higher Education Institute School of Oriental and African Studies Children who grow up in oral musical contexts such as the families of hereditary musical specialists commonly learn the body-language of music before they learn music itself.

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#Beyondtext’s Growing into Music explores how music is learnt and shared by children in countries with oral traditions bit.ly/H326Gb

From conkers to singing games, rude jokes to fantasy play, Playtimes brings together 100 years of children’s songs, rhymes and games. Explore war battles on bomb sites, rude jokes on council estates, and imaginary TV in the playground, to discover the fascinating world of children’s play.

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Another great #beyondtext project explores children’s playground games in a ‘new media’ age bit.ly/H0bOMq

From conkers to singing games, rude rhymes to chasing games, Playtimes brings together a hundred years of children’s songs, rhymes and games. Explore war battles on bombsites, rude jokes on council estates, and fantasy TV shows in the playground, to discover the unique and fascinating world of children’s play.

Mark Jacobs in the Chair with Paul Basu, Andrew Burn and Bob Ladd

There is a transposition of narrative from physical playground games into digital games – example of clapping games. Use of motion capture to capture forms of movement.

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Are children’s playground games adversely affected by mediatised cultures. You would enjoy this @culturevultures #beyondtext

Like this:

A real collaborative project.
We started something yesterday.

People talk on different levels

Feeling about it – a very odd feeling seeing how the work came back where somebody, I don’t know who or where, has worked on it adding ideas and their own thinking. If the work had changed dramatically, then we might have had a problem. As it was, it had changed a fair bit from our original idea but it hadn’t gone a long way; not much time. If there had been a bifurcation and they’d gone off in a totally different direction. If we’d got it back and thought “That’s absolutely not what we were thinking.” then there might have been the potential for conflict. They couldn’t know our pattern of thinking and we had no communication with them; all they got from us were a few slides.

We’ve actually come up with quite a good idea. But the issue emerges – how do we continue it? What mechanisms do we have for sustaining that type of collaborative work. I’m hoping that other people around the world will be thinking about how we implement.

Like this:

A fabulous event in Liverpool that still has me thinking about the issues and means that I have to blog about it. This event really does try to ‘boundary cross’ – between the arts and technology, social media, music, geeks, non-geeks (not many!) and businesses (could be more). Overall a great event and I learnt a lot.

Here is some stuff on the opening and on the importance of narrative. The importance of stories keeps coming up in events. Especially events that have someting to do with social media. We neglect stories at our peril!

Bloggers think ‘No, but it can probably lose it’

Last week’s elections and the political fallout have placed in context, for me, the event I went to at the Frontline Club on 28 May about how the Internet might play a part in the next election. The participants were:

I made contemporaneous notes and also some Audioboo content which is available here. A bit of background to the event here:

Everyone in ‘Broadcast Mode’ needs to ‘get with the program’

Iain Dale - political blogger

Iain Dale (pictured left) believes that the internet will impact individual MPs (mostly through revealing things they don’t want revealed I suspect) but that the overall ‘systemic’ effect of the internet will be small.

He agrees that the next General Election will be the first where mobile phones and social media will really begin to play a part and where bloggers will cause changes in the news cycle:

“We get more hits every day than all the 3 main parties put together”

He said referring to the traffic generated by his blog and by Guido Fawkes’.

The problem is the main parties are in ‘Broadcast Mode’ and that given British politics is driven by ‘controlling the message’ the level of interactivity of social media is a challenge. As Matthew Macgregor said “The internet is a tactic not a strategy” and that it lowers the barriers to communication (especially inbound to the Party) but how real is the commitment to ‘openness and transparency’. The reaction of the media to policy discussions driven by social media will, Matthew believes, be instructive; will the shutters come down once the media starts talking about ‘splits’.

“There’s nothing to click on other than ‘Unsubscribe'” – Matthew Macgregor

Alex Smith believes that “The Internet will play a crucial role in the next election” – he mentions viral video and the possibility of debate being shaped by the internet. He argues that the internet has “already effectively removed one of the Prime Minister’s closest political aides” and that the next election will to some extent be driven by stories that will “break on the web”. Alex believes that Paul and Iain have a huge impact on the media cycle and thinks that this will be an important factor. All the panelists agreed that the Internet strategies of the main parties were poor at best.

Boulton’s shock hashtag confession

At one point when talking about social media and the internet Adam Boulton said he didn’t know what a hashtag was (and I don’t think he was joking!) and references to the internet seemed to feel like references to some kind of monolithic bloc. Alex picked up the point that realtime interaction driven by things like Twitter might be important. Adam seemed to think that a Sky news team would always be faster on the ground.

The next Boo starts with the voices of Alex Smith (interesting references to Alan Johnson) and then Iain Dale. I round off with a few thoughts.

The next Boo has ‘reportage’ – skip it if you feel you have enough of a flavour from the text above.

Reflections and implications

The format worked well with a fairly formal panel session followed by various panelists joining tables and moving between courses. The informal part of the event was really good – we had Iain Dale and Alex Smith and the comments and discussion were very engaging.

The event would have been improved by a more discursive (and less ‘Question Time’) approach by the chair. Also, having a chair who seemed quite cheerful to admit that he didn’t ‘get’ the internet seems odd – but then presumably Adam ‘Hashtag’ Boulton was a draw for the ‘punters’ (especially the non-geeks)! All in all though a minor criticism.

There were two main things I took away to think about:

The importance of internet aggregation in realtime and increasing symmetry of communication,

The potential for independent candidates to harness the power of the internet to disintermediate the major parties.

Like this:

On the day of the G20 protests, I was in two places at once. At home working and listening to Radio 5’s somewhat hysterical coverage, and also watching the Twitter #g20 hashtag and following the tweets of people I know and others from the protests.

Covering live events with Social Media

The ‘coverage’ aggregation I was able to do was amazing. In particular (until his battery ran out!) Steve Lawson (@solobasssteve) was using Qik to report in near realtime from outside the Bank of England where the Police were involved in the bizarre and, I consider, unlawful tactic of ‘kettling’; constraining peaceful protestors and not allowing them free passage through the streets of the City of London.

Watch Steve Lawson’s footage and you will see what I mean – you can hear the stress in his voice and others’ around him as they realise they are hemmed in by Police.

The footage which everyone knows about is of the sad death of Ian Tomlinson. Brought back to mind yesterday again by the failure of the Police to obtain an injunction against Channel 4 News. But the thing I keep remembering is the statement made by the IPCC and immediately carried without any question by conventional media – that “there were no cameras in the locations he was assualted”. I felt cold when I heard that. Close to the Bank of England, in the heart of the City in a country where there is a CCTV camera for every 14 people? Not credible. And the IPCC subsequently admitted they’d ‘mis-spoken’.

CCTV good – StreetView bad?

Most people must think CCTV cameras in all our towns, cities and villages is a ‘good thing’. Few seem to object and, for example, the residents of a village near ours actually petitioned to have one installed. And then we see the objections to Google Streetview – while I think it sensible for faces to be obscured in Streetview; I don’t know of any reason why the faces of people in a public street taken incidentally to a more general view should not be shown? Should we be bothered that out-of-date images of the street we live in should be available globally to all but happy that live video of us is being monitored locally by people we don’t know – but it’s ok because they’re the Police?

The watched are becoming the watchers

We’re seeing the unintended consequences of pervasive social and new media. We all have cameras, all the time and many of us can upload ‘feed’ from live events immediately. So now the watched become the watchers; we all have our own ‘CCTV’ and we have a new set of tools which could, I hope, be used for positive change and digital engagement but are, if needed, available to watch our own backs.